Subir Roy
bdnews24.com Khulna correspondent
Khulna, May 25 (bdnews24.com) — Most victims of the Cyclone Aila that battered the southwest coasts of disaster-prone Bangladesh are still struggling in Khulna and Satkhira even two years after the storm.
Many of the affected people are still living on dams, away from their own houses, for lack of safe water, food and work.
They even cannot resume their farm works as saline water submerged their croplands through the breached dykes, taking its toll on their land fertility.
The devastating Aila, the second such natural calamity after Sidr wrought havoc on Nov 15, 2008, in Satkhira, Bagerhat, Khulna, Barisal, Noakhali, Bhola, Cox's Bazar, Patuakhali, Lakshmipur, Magura, Narsinghdi, Rajshahi, Chapainawabganj, Naogaon and Rangpur districts.
Over two hundred people died and many more went missing as the cyclones had left a trail of destruction in the districts. The cyclones also blew away many establishments — from thatched houses to tin-roofed buildings, from schools to markets — and caused deaths to thousands of cattlehead and other livestock apart from destroying roads, bridges and culverts.
Through the collapsed dams, sea water rolled into arable lands and houses, leaving the farmers and their families in an awful humanitarian crisis.
Almost all the 38 polders of dams in Khulna, Satkhira and Bagerhat, stretching over 1,651 kilometres, were damaged in Aila, when 109 of the 639 sluice-gates also broke down, said Water Development Board deputy assistant engineer Anwar Hossain.
Only 250 kilometres of the dams have so far been repaired, he added.
Although the reconstruction of the embankments started in time, the work is advancing at a snail's pace, locals allege.
At the same time, the cyclone victims in most villages of Dakop and Koyra upazilas under Khulna, and Shyamnagar upazila in Satkhira neither receive any aid nor have any access to rehabilitation programmes, they added.
They are living on the dams in a poor state without pure drinking water, food and work although some relief and rehabilitation programmes were being implemented.
The government and global assistance is too inadequate to improve the situation, according to locals.
NOR ANY DROP TO DRINK
Although water is all around, Dakop's Sutarkhali Union Parishad chairman G M Ashraf Hossain said the scarcity of pure drinking water in his area was acute. "People are getting too little against their minimum required demand."
Gabura Upazila chairman Masudul Alam echoed Ashraf's opinion.
Due to the scarcity of drinking water, which has worsened the plight of the affected people, they often drink water from ponds and sometimes river water braving saline.
Faruk Ahmed, non-government organisation Rupantar's disaster management coordinator, gave the most shocking information that some two million people of Khulna, Satkhira and Bagerhat had only 55 tubewells as the only source of sweet water.
WE'VE DONE A LOT
The local administration, however, boasts of their 'tremendous jobs' done to improve the condition of the cyclone victims in Khulna and Satkhira, who, on the other ands, are frustrated with their prolonged miseries.
Khulna deputy commissioner Mohammad Jamsher Ahmed Khandker told bdnews24.com that adequate relief materials were distributed both at government- and non-government levels among the cyclone victims.
"We exempted the affected farmers from many loans, gave grants for building houses, and seeds and fertiliser for cultivation," he said. "We provided foods and water in plastic jars, too."
LOCALS REJECT CLAIMS
Amiron Bibi, an widow of Moheswaripur of Koyra, said they did not find anyone coming with relief for them.
"No one came to help us in the last two years and I did not get any financial assistance either," sexagenarian Amiron, who lost her house and land to Aila, told bdnews24.com correspondent Subir Roy recently.
"My daughter works as a day-labourer and support the three-member family," she said in sad voice.
Farmer-turned-day-labourer Nazrul Islam of Shyamnagar's Chuibaria village, who struggles to support his family living on a dam, said he could not cultivate anything on his land after Aila because of the saline water.
Dakop chairman Abul Hossain said: "Only the people of a small portion of my locality have been benefited by the food-for-work and the 40-day employment generation programmes."
"The open market sale [OMS], vulnerable group feeding [VGF] and vulnerable group development [VGD] programmes have already been suspended," he told bdnews24.com.
The programmes were suspended in April as the local administration persuaded that there was no necessity of the programmes any more, locals say.
INADEQUATE FUND FOR HOUSING
Many of the lucky farmers in Dakop Upazila, who were enlisted for Tk 20,000 grant to build houses under the post-Aila reconstruction programme, are not sure whether they will get the full aid.
The upazila administration, after disbursing Tk 12,000 in the first phase, recently suspended the programme following complexities over the names of the farmers, the Dakop chairman said.
Besides, some farmers said in the current market situation it was not possible to build a house with the amount.
"It's not enough to build a house when the prices of building materials are too high," said farmer Abdul Majid Meer of Gunari village.
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